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Iu Mien phonology
Consonants There are 31 cited consonant phonemes in Iu Mien. A distinguishing feature of Iu Mien consonants is the presence of voiceless nasals and laterals. # The standard spelling system for Iu Mien does not represent the stop sounds in a way that corresponds to the IPA symbols, but instead uses e.g. , , and to represent . This may stem from an attempt to model the Iu Mien spelling system on Pinyin (used to represent Mandarin Chinese), where and represent . The Pinyin influence is also seen in the use of , , and to represent the alveolar affricates and , , and for the postalveolar affricates . Note also that the use of to represent the velar nasal means that it cannot also be used to represent , as would be predicted; instead, is used. # According to Aumann and Chengqian, in a certain Chinese dialect, the postalveolar affricates are instead palatal stops (/cʰ/, /c/, /ɟ/). # According to Daniel Bruhn, the voiceless nasals are actually sequences (i.e. a short nasalized /h/ followed by a voiced nasal), while the voiceless lateral is actually a voiceless lateral fricative . # Bruhn also observed that younger-generation Iu Mien Americans were more likely to substitute the voiceless nasals and voiceless laterals with /h/ and the alveolo-palatal affricates with their corresponding palato-alveolar variants. Onset It appears that all single consonant phonemes except /ʔ/ can occur as the onset.mienh.net online lesson - Initial ConsonantsZhou 2003:259 Coda Unlike Hmong, which generally prohibits coda consonants, Iu Mien has seven single consonant phonemes that can take the coda position. These consonants are /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, p̚, t̚, k̚, and /ʔ/. Some of the stops can only occur as final consonants when accompanied by certain tones; for example, /ʔ/ only occurs with the tone or . Vowels Iu Mien vowels are represented in the Iu Mien United Script using combinations of the six letters, , , , , , and . According to Bruhn, the monophthongs are , , , , , , , , , and . The diphthongs are , , , , , , , . Furthermore, additional diphthongs and triphthongs can be formed from the aforementioned vowels through /i/- or /u/-on-gliding (having /i/ or /u/ before the vowel). Such vowels attested by Bruhn include , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . The dialect studied by Bruhn, and described in the above table, has a phoneme that does not have its own spelling, but is represented in various contexts either as or (which are also used for /e/ and , respectively). In all cases where is spelled , and nearly all cases where it is spelled , it does not contrast with /e/ or , respectively, and can be viewed as an allophone of these sounds. The only potential exception appears to be when occurring as a syllable final by itself, where it has an extremely restricted distribution, occurring only after the (alveolo-)palatal consonants . The sound may be a secondary development from in this context, although Bruhn does not discuss this issue. Tones Iu Mien is a tonal language with six observed tonemes. In the Iu Mien United Script (the language's most common writing system), tones are not marked with diacritics; rather, a word's tone is indicated by a special marker letter at the end of the word. If a word lacks a marker, then it is to be pronounced with a middle tone. References